Keith Hudson's Musings

Another reason why multinational businesses are becoming more powerful

Another reason why multinational businesses are proving to be more effective organisations than natinal governments is that they choose far brainier executives. When the highly contralised nation-states of Northern Europe — and set the tone for every other country — were at their apogee about 100 uears ago they were able to choose their senior civil service by-setting competititive exams that suited the graduates of the elite universities. Being highly educated and lknowing all abour social deference in history, the sernio civil sverice devised multi-layered pyramids of control. In England we have well over 20 such layers.

Some of the brainiest graduates, however, were engineers and scientists, and the civil service exams didn’t seelect for these. Apart from scientific research within academe the left-overs gradually found residence in bueinss and increasingly so. Because business, unlike civil services, has to remain efficient most of the time then it has increasingly adopted a fast track method of leadership from among any brainy employee in addition to those scientists and engineers directly recruited. Most multinational corporations now have little more than about four or five levels and bright people are thus more visible and can more easily be promoted.

The result is — in contrast to a century ago — the people at the top of multinational corporations are generally brainier than the most sernior civil servnts.